Fuseli's The Tempest: Act I Scene II:
A Transformation of Creation of Adam
Fuseli’s transformation of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam to include Caliban and Prospero in place of God and Adam respectively provides evidence that Fuseli’s work depicts Caliban as the protagonist and Prospero as the antagonist of The Tempest. Just as Caliban and Prospero have their arms outstretched towards each other in Fuseli’s illustration, God and Adam are reaching for one another in Michelangelo’s painting. Caliban takes on the role of God in Fuseli’s painting, as he is on the right side of the canvas—where God is located in Creation of Adam. Conversely, Prospero adopts Adam’s position. Because Christian orthodoxy asserts that Adam sinned and humans are always inferior to God, the relationships Fuseli’s painting establishes between Adam and Prospero and between God and Caliban imply that Prospero is the antagonist and Caliban is the protagonist of The Tempest.
Fuseli’s understanding of Prospero as the antagonist and Caliban as the protagonist ultimately interprets The Tempest as a condemnation of colonialism in the New World, as Shakespeare’s text establishes Prospero and Caliban as representations of Englishmen and Native Americans respectively. While oppressive master-servant relationships are the focus of Fuseli’s painting, the background of his image suggests the painting’s colonial commentary. Specifically, the sea in the background and the large circle at the center of the image—which resembles the globe—allude to transatlantic colonialism and the colonial shipwreck that inspired Shakespeare’s text. In this sense, the background of Fuseli’s image provides political context—transoceanic colonialism—for the oppressive relationships in the foreground of the image, which ultimately presents an interpretation of Shakespeare’s text as a condemnation of colonialism.
Works Cited
Fuseli, Henry. Tempest: Prospero, Miranda, Caliban and Ariel. Act I Scene II. Web. <http://luna.folger.edu/luna/servlet/detail/FOLGERCM1~6~6~241525~116059:
Tempest,-Prospero,-Miranda,-Caliban#>
Michelangelo. Creation of Adam. Rome, 1508-1512. Web.
<http://www.italianrenaissance.org/michelangelo-creation-of-adam/>
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Ed. Virginia Mason Vaughan and Aldan T. Vaughan. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. Print.